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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I empathize as my situation is somewhat similar to yours.  If you have been giving her paid sick days for when she is truly sick, I would not renegotiate her benefits package to include these as you are concerned she might abuse them.  If you otherwise really like your nanny, I would have a conversation with her about how she needs to take better care of herself, such as eating proper meals, as she can take good care of your child only if she is taking good care of herself.  This might seem a bit much to some people, but you could also for a while, ask the nanny if she ate breakfast that morning.  Most people can't flip a switch and change their behavior and a daily reminder that she needs to eat would be a gentle albeit slightly annoying way to help her.  I would also discuss your mutual expectations of each other when it comes to your doing things for your kids when working from home and use this as a forum for setting up ground rules.  E.g., ask her, "when I'm working from home, do you think that I'll pick up the kids most of the time?"  If she says yes, you respond that even though you do do it most of the time, she should EXPECT zero from you and act accordingly.  So unless you say you are going to pick up the kids, she should go about the day with zero expectation of this.  And what I have had to do a couple times with our nanny is that when it was apparent to me that she expected me to do something (with me having done nothing to make her think this) and I actually was planning to do it, I actually made it a point NOT TO so to be a learning moment for her not to expect the particular thing from me.

Oftentimes, I am home for part of our nanny's work day.  Because of this, I found that nanny had strange expectations of me, such as that I would finish up the laundry she didn't get to, help out with DC so she could make DC's lunch, let her leave early just because.  I had to sit down with her and stress, sometimes multiple times, that she should expect nothing from me unless and until I said I would do X.  In our case, I do think there were some cultural expectations that if the mom is around, she will be caring for the child.  It took a few months, but she gets it now.  [/quote]

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